Trump makes CONCERNING post thanking Americans for 'HIGHEST' poll numbers despite tanking approvals

Two minutes ago, we were all supposed to be down in the rotunda while Donald Trump signed it into law. But Trump has now said, nope, he's not going to do that. You know what that says to me? It says to me that Donald Trump just doesn't care about the cost squeeze on American families. This is the guy who said affordability is a made up word that Democrats came up with. Affordability is a hoax. He said about inflation, he loves the inflation. Yeah, he does. He doesn't care about high prices for millions of people across this country. Hi, everyone. It's now five o'clock in the east. It is a bigger mess than usual in Donald Trump's Washington, D.C. Right now, we're not just talking about the mess he's made of the reflecting pool. 17 months into Trump 2.0, and Donald Trump is more detached from reality and out of touch politically than ever before, as his priorities veer further and further away from what Americans, including the vast majority of his own voters, say they want by the day. Earlier today, as the senator was alluding to, Donald Trump torpedoed a chance to show Americans that he doesn't actually think affordability is a hoax made up by Democrats. He canceled a bill signing that was meant to champion a landmark bipartisan piece of affordable housing legislation. And he did it just two hours before that ceremony was supposed to begin. He did it to demand legislation to make it harder for the American people to vote. Donald Trump posted this on True Social, quote, Today's housing news conference and signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed Save America Act, which I consider to be a national emergency. It was followed by two pictures of the reflecting pool. It was so weird and last minute that even Republicans were caught flat footed. They were in the middle of a press conference where they were publicly in front of the press championing the bill and applauding Donald Trump for his help in getting it passed. It caused the ever loyal House Speaker Mike Johnson to actually voice some exasperation with his dear leader, Donald Trump. Watch that. I talked to him about it this morning, an hour before he made that announcement. I convinced him that his priorities and he's not making life easier. We're doing our job. Speaker Johnson is just the latest Republican, though, to let his exasperation with Donald Trump spill into public view. As Donald Trump delivers today's unforced error before Republicans breaking with their colleagues yesterday and voting on a resolution directing an end to Donald Trump's deeply unpopular war in Iran, a war which is causing some to defect from Donald Trump's political party entirely. Earlier this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene did just that. She announced that she is joining Tucker Carlson in his decision to leave the GOP. It is in no small part because of Donald Trump's war with Iran. It's a trend that is likely to continue as new polling shows just how deeply unpopular that war is with the American people. As we reported last hour, less than a quarter of Americans, 24 percent, believe the war with Iran has been worth the costs. Just 34 percent of Americans approve of Donald Trump's handling of his presidency overall. What would be a five alarm fire for any normal president seems unlikely to break through with Donald Trump, who instead posted this on True Social in all caps, quote, My real poll numbers are the highest they have ever been. Thank you, President DGT. Donald Trump's completely delusional presidency, causing even Speaker Mike Johnson to flee, is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Puck News Senior Political Columnist and National Affairs Analyst John Heinlein is back. Also back with us, Media Matters for America President Angelo Carusone and Managing Editor of The Bulwark contributor Sam Stein is here. Sam, first of all, can you add any reporting to our understanding as to how Mike Johnson, of all people who seems to have wired his own little bat phone inside the Oval Office for like a game of Simon Says or Mother May I, how did he end up in cross signals with Donald Trump? Well, from our understanding, this was totally out of the blue. And it wasn't just Mike Johnson who was caught off guard. There were actual members of Donald Trump's staff who even minutes, hours before the signing ceremony was set to take place, were boasting about the bill's funding and the legislation, the housing legislation that was going to pass, talking about how it's going to bring great financial relief to people who are looking to buy a home. And so this is sort of a classic Trump move where when there was no drama, he demands that it be inserted where the spotlight would have been on a lot of legislators. He demands the spotlight be on himself. And I wish to add one element to this because I think this is really rankling a lot of lawmakers on the Hill and the Republican side of things. It's not just the excessive drama and the just torpedoing of this piece of legislation. It's the monomaniacal insistence on getting the Save America Act, the SAVE Act, passed into law and using whatever parliamentary means are possible to do so. Now, there are no parliamentary means possible to do so. They'd have to blow up the filibuster. And he's insistent on this. And it's causing a lot of consternation and frustration among lawmakers on the Hill. So when Johnson was fleeing there, the questions were about the housing bill. But what they really were about is the SAVE Act. The House has passed and the Senate cannot do it. And Donald Trump is demanding essentially everything come to a halt in order for that to pass. And I will just say, I think this is in some ways the more important story here because Donald Trump has basically made it doctrine for 30 percent of the country that our elections are fraudulent. It's no longer just him spouting off conspiracies and everyone entertaining them. People now legitimately believe that our elections, which there's been no proof that there's widespread corruption in our elections, 30 percent of the country at least believe that this is the case. And because of that, they are willing to hold hostage basic legislative processes, including widely bipartisan bills to provide financial relief to American public. And it's causing people like Mike Johnson to basically rip their hair out in the most polite possible way that Mike Johnson can do so without offending Donald Trump. Well, the problem, I guess, politically then is that 30 percent of the country believing their delusional lies. First of all, it says something about the lack of intelligence of the 30 percent, because how does Donald Trump win two of the last three elections if the elections are so corrupt, right? I mean, the left is corrupting and corrupting our elections if Trump won two of the last three contests. But 30 percent of the electorate is not enough to hang on to really many of the seats if the size of the political wave that is heading their way is to be believed from Republicans. I want to read you, Heilman, what Republicans are saying. This is a Republican Senate staffer who says, quote, We saw glimpses of this during Trump's first administration, but never in my lifetime have I seen a president so deliberately attempt to lose majorities for his own party. The Republican aide told our Capitol Hill reporter. Yeah, Nicole, I was going to say that 30 percent, 30 percent doesn't win you a seat anywhere in the country. You might. I'm not trying to say that that you can't put together a bunch of in safe seats you can't put together. You can eventually get to 50 plus one. But I mean, the number of people who believe what Sam correctly cites is is not is not enough. And the problem for Donald Trump is that that that number has has stopped moving in any way to the extent that there was a base underneath Donald Trump. It has been eroding, maybe not in. It's not crumbling. It's not completely falling apart. But they're they're all you need is a little bit of that when you combine it with the absolute devastating numbers that that Republicans are seeing with independent voters. And and I'll say I've spoken the last 72 hours to a strategist in Georgia, a strategist in Kansas and a strategist. Where's the third one from? There was a third one that I talked to in a in a in a Senate race, all of whom are seeing, oh, in Texas, all of whom are seeing Republicans in their focus groups open to the idea of voting for the Democratic candidate for Senate in those races. Now, Georgia is a democratically held seat. John Ossoff is very strong candidate. Obviously, Texas is going to be an increasingly important race. Kansas is not a race that's currently on anybody's radar. But there are people out there who will tell you that they think it's not impossible in the right year with the candidate Democrats or who's likely to win the primary there, who's the largest preacher, the largest has the largest congregation in the United Methodist preacher out there in the right year with the right candidate. It's not impossible. There is a Democratic governor in Kansas now, so it's not impossible. And you're starting to hear the signs there among Republicans who are getting frustrated, not just in the political class, but voters who are who are fed up with this. And the last thing I'll say is that there's the most important thing that was that said in this entire exchange is the part of Trump's post where he says the phrase national emergency. And I think that when you start to think about what all of this is about, Sam's correct focus on the SAVE Act piece of this is that Donald Trump is starting to broadcast his strategy for interfering with intervening in and trying to steal the 2026 election, something that we've talked a lot about on the show over the course of many, many months. But national emergency is a phrase that you should remember, because I think we're going to start to see it more and more in Donald Trump communications, both on social media and his language when he talks about these things on the stump. That is how you get to a justification for starting to seize control of the election apparatus and mechanisms and means by which we hold elections. National emergency. He said it right there. I think we're going to hear it again.